The subject invention relates to wear-resistant elements used e.g. in grinding and crushing operations as well as for road slabs in parking decks or as road coverings in front of road signs such as e.g. stop signals, pedestrian road-crossing and other traffic signs, where the wear on the road surface is excessive.
Wear metals of hard cast iron that has been reinforced to increase its ductility have hitherto been used in various fields. The strength of such wear metals is very high but nevertheless the practical use of these metals involves a number of disadvantages.
Prior-art wear-metal objects of the kind outlined above are very heavy. Their specific weight is of a magnitude of between 7 and 7.5 kg/dm.sup.3 and the material therefore is difficult to handle on account of its considerable weight. Furthermore, the consumer as a rule uses at the most two thirds of the metal, the remainder being returned as scrap. Consequently, large quantities of heavy material are transported without ever being used.
A further disadvantage is that the manufacture of wear-metal objects of the kind indicated above, involving a casting process including preparation of sand, moulding, casting, knocking out and cleaning, is very complicated and time-consuming, and consequently it entails considerable costs.